Advice for filtering out space invaders

[Lindsay441]

Hello everyone. I am new to home-share hosting and I’m having a “questionable” guest.  He’s a space invader, never leaves, sits on my stoop smoking and drinking beer, and has made some too-friendly comments, etc. This forum has been SO helpful and I’ll be updating my listing after he leaves to reflect better boundaries and filtering guests that are a better fit. 

The worst part is that he’s here for 3.5 more weeks. Yes, I made a big rookie mistake, but what’s done is done and I’ll just be avoiding him as best as I can, as it seems that any friendliness on my part is perceived as a carte-blanche invitation to “hang out.”  He’s taken over my living room and TV even though there is one in his room, and has already suggested that “we” watch a Netflix series together…buddy, there is no “we” happening here!  Lesson learned. 

My previous hosting experiences (not through AirBnb) has been with med students doing rotations, and they’re wonderful guests. I want to shorten my max stay to two weeks to prevent me getting stuck with an undesirable guest for too long, but I don’t want to preclude students or interns that might be looking for longer stays. Is there a good way to advertise that the max length of stay can be extended (or another work around)?

My other rookie question: can you share some of your “screening” questions when you receive a request to book?

Thanks in advance!

[Emiel1]

@Lindsay441 

You can mention in the description a stay can be extended after initial booking of max. two weeks, but the main problem is: the search system will not show your listing to someone looking for a stay longer then 2 weeks !

You can ask a potential guest "what is the purpose of your stay in Philadelphia ?"

Check the profile (reviews).

Sharing common spaces does not mean not to respect privacy.

Otherwise limit access to the livingroom (or do not offer).

[Sarah977]

@Lindsay441  I'm a home share host myself. My guests share my kitchen and outdoor seating area, but not my living room. A guest usually appreciates a place to prepare their own meals, but they don't need access to your entire home apart from your bedroom, so consider removing the living room from the common spaces.

I haven't had the issue of guests being annoyingly present constantly, as people come to my town to vacation and enjoy the beach. So they are out and about most days. 

If they get "beached out", which most do after a few days, they normally spend a day reading or doing online stuff up in their room or at the outdoor dining table, so they aren't at all annoyingly hanging about.

Not sure what  to suggest re your current guest- hanging around constantly appears to be his lifestyle, and he obviously doesn't pick up on boundaries and appropriateness, so you might just have to grin and bear it, and, as you say, take it as an irritating learning curve. 

My max stay has always been 2 weeks. I just can't see allowing guests to initially book for longer than that when a guest is sharing a home with the host. I've had some lovely guests who I wouldn't have minded letting extend at all, but in fact that hadn't happened because as I said, people come here on vacation, not for work or as a living situation. There was one sweet guest who would have liked to exttend, and I would have been fine with that, had I not already been booked for those dates.

[Kath9]

@Lindsay441 , I'm with @Sarah977  on this. I started out giving guests free range of the whole house, but soon realised I needed to set stronger boundaries as some people simply don't have any. My guests have access to the kitchen and dining area, but not my lounge, which is the one room in my home apart from my bedroom that is still mine. I recommend you do the same. Regarding your current guest, you may simply have to grin and bear it until he leaves. However, if his 'too friendly' comments get any friendlier, I'd be asking him to leave. Also, have you got a lock on your bedroom door? I installed one and it made me feel a whole lot better with the one dodgy male guest I had. You could also let him know you don't feel comfortable with guests drinking and smoking all day and suggest that somewhere else might be a better for him. 

I would definitely reduce your maximum stay to, say,  a week. Tourists don't usually need more than that. Perhaps you could advertise elsewhere for longer-stay guests, like wherever you used to advertise for the med students. 

Good luck with it - fingers crossed he leaves sooner. 

[Debra300]

@Lindsay441,

You can set your maximum stay to less than a month, and enable the option that allows guests to send you a booking request for stays longer than your maximum.  Guests searching for longer stays will still see your place in the results.

[Anonymous]

@Lindsay441   One thing I'm not 100% clear on from your listing is the door/curtain situation. But it does sound pretty accurate when you say that the home is not the best fit for guests who need a lot of privacy.

The conflicting element is that guests like this one, who don't want a lot of privacy, are not the best fit for you. It's definitely OK to make it known that you prefer to keep to yourself when you're at home - your guest is entitled to use the spaces that are advertised for guest access, but your company for Netflix and Chill is not a part of that package. If the guest insists on an "Emily in Paris" marathon, you have every right to say, "you're welcome to watch that in your room but I'm finishing Squid Game tonight."

I don't know whether your guest is a total sleazeball or not - the intimacy of home-sharing makes it easy to misread the hospitality a host is performing for the job as something more personal. But if things are at the point where you're not feeling safe or comfortable in your home, you do have the right to terminate the booking. Generally what you'd do is say it's not working out, give reasonable notice, and extend an appropriate refund in the booking modification request. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but everywhere in the service industry women are being asked to grin and bear way too much from guys who are exploiting the situation.

Short stays are probably the best bet as far as Airbnb is concerned. The option of extending is there if your calendar isn't dotted with short stays, but if a guest has earned your trust enough to be welcomed for a long-term stay, you're both better off doing a real rental contract and cutting Airbnb and its fees out of the equation. They don't offer any services that are useful for long bookings - no tools to vet guests for your own safety, no deposit, no help if the payment fails and the guest turns out to be a squatter.  

[Lindsay441]

Thanks, @Anonymous for the feedback.  The curtain thing has never been an issue until my first Airbnb guest who was clearly uncomfortable with it, taping it to the edges of the door and stuffing a towel over the top of it where there was a small space between the curtain and top of the door frame.  Perhaps he missed it in the photos so I wanted to be transparent about it and clearly point it out in the description.  It IS private, as you really can't see anything in that room unless you're standing on the stairs directly in front of it, but it isn't soundproof.  

I thought more about it and I now realize that, as you suggest, AirBnB is WAY more suited for shorter stays.  The med student type of tenant is far more predictable - I know they'll leave during the day, I know they're vetted by a hospital or other institution, I know they're generally be studying when they are home.  So thanks to you and @Kath9  for that great insight.  

And @Sarah977 hit the behavior right on the head.  He seems to be a bit lost, and his comments haven't been outright inappropriate, but I can tell he's "fishing."  I do have a lock on my door so I'm not feeling unsafe.  This just isn't the AirBnB for Lost Souls Seeking Entertainment, LOL.    

[Sarah977]

@Anonymous  I was certainly not suggesting that the OP "grin and bear it", nor can I imagine Kath was, if there is any feeling that the guest is coming on to the host inappropriately. I got more the sense from how the OP described his behavior that he's just dull and bored, has no idea or interest in how to keep himself busy in any productive way, and maybe lonely (as one would be if they just hang around the house all day and have no other social interaction).

If the guy is putting out "come get closer" vibes, she should definitely get him out, and thanks for pointing that out.